German Coast
Specifically, from east (or south) to west (or north), in St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, and St. James parishes of present-day Acadiana.
[3] As early as 1718, John Law and the Company of the Indies began recruiting French settlers to settle Louisiana (New France), though not specifically to what would become the German Coast.
Roughly four thousand individuals (four hundred and fifty families) mostly from Rhineland, but also from Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Swedish Pomerania, Alsace–Lorraine, Belgium, and Switzerland traveled across France to Lorient in Brittany to make the voyage to Louisiana.
On December 15, 1721, French Governor Bienville issued an order for boats to transport the recently arrived German-speaking settlers including newly named Commandant Charles Frédérique d'Arensbourg, born Karl Friedrich von Arensburg, to the already established villages of Hoffen, Marienthal, and Augsburg on the west bank of the Mississippi River.
[8] The German Coast was located along the west bank of the Mississippi River extending roughly from Taft north to Lucy in present-day Louisiana.
A number of common Cajun surnames have German origins: for example, Schexnayder (various spellings), LaBranche (a calque of Zweig), Folse, Zeringue (Zehring), Hymel (Himmel), and Trosclair (a phonetic macaronic of Troxler).
[15] In the Louisiana Rebellion of 1768, German colonists joined with Acadians from the Cabannocé Post area to march on New Orleans and overthrow the new Spanish colonial governor Antonio de Ulloa.
Between 1769 and 1777, Governor Luis de Unzaga Amezaga 'le Conciliateur' promoted the colonization of the extensive province of Louisiana and distributed land and agricultural tools to the European families who came to live there.
[16] Starting in the late 1770s, the German and Acadian settlers united again, under Spanish colonial governor Bernardo de Gálvez, to fight the British during the American Revolutionary War.
[18] They will take part in the battles of: Capture of Fort Bute (1779) Bernardo de Galvez recruited 760 men including 160 indians in this area.
